Quotes by Playwrights - Page 149

He who sings scares away his woes.
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Tax not so bad a voice to slander music any more than once.
William Shakespeare
The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.
William Shakespeare
I mean, if Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at twenty-two, the history of music would have been very different. As would the history of aviation, of course.
Tom Stoppard
Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays.
Oscar Wilde
If you cannot teach me to fly, teach me to sing.
J.M. Barrie
Next to music, beer was best.
Carson McCullers
I have not yet learned to use our television DVR. One of the points of marriage is that you split labor. In the olden days that meant one hunted and one gathered; now it means one knows where the tea-towels are kept and the other knows how to program the DVR, for why should we both have to know?
Elizabeth Alexander
It is he who has broken the bond of marriage - not I. I only break its bondage.
Oscar Wilde
He sat down in his chair by the fire and began to chat, as was his habit before he and his wife parted to dress for dinner. When he was out during the day he often looked forward to these chats, and made notes of things he would like to tell his Mary. During her day, which was given to feminine duties and pleasures, she frequently did the same thing. Between seven and eight in the evening they had delightful conversational opportunities. He picked up her book and glanced it over, he asked her a few questions and answered a few...
Frances Hodgson Burnett
…Mrs. Warren allowed her book to fall closed upon her lap, and her attractive face awakened to an expression of agreeable expectation, in itself denoting the existence of interesting and desirable qualities in the husband at the moment inserting his latch-key in the front door preparatory to mounting the stairs and joining her. The man who, after twenty-five years of marriage, can call, by his return to her side, this expression to the countenance of an intelligent woman is, without question or argument, an individual whose life and occupations are as interesting as his character and points of view.
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Family ... the home of all social evil, a charitable institution for comfortable women, an anchorage for house-fathers, and a hell for children.
August Strindberg
In all marriages there is struggle and ours was no different in that regard. But we always came to the other shore, dusted off, and said, There you are, my love.
Elizabeth Alexander
Lorenzo: In such a night stood Dido with a willow in her hand upon the wild sea-banks, and waft her love to come again to Carthage Jessica: In such a night Medea gathered the enchanted herbs that did renew old Aeson. Lorenzo: In such a night did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew, and with an unthrift love did run from Venice, as far as Belmont. Jessica: In such a night did young Lorenzo swear he lov'd her well, stealing her soul with many vows of faith, and ne'er a true one. Lorenzo: In such a night did pretty Jessica (like a little shrow) slander her love, and he forgave it her. Jessica: I would out-night you, did nobody come; but hark, I hear the footing of a man.
William Shakespeare
For the crown of our life as it closesIs darkness, the fruit there of dust;No thorns go as deep as the rose's,And love is more cruel than lust.Time turns the old days to derision,Our loves into corpses or wives;And marriage and death and divisionMake barren our lives.
Algernon Charles Swinburne
In his business, he observed human nature and came to certain conclusions about it. The conclusions lacked wisdom and originality; in fact, they were tiresome. But they were important to McGarrity because he had figured them out for himself. In the first years of their marriage, he had tried to tell Mae about these conclusions, but all she said was, "I can imagine." Sometimes she varied by saying, "I can just imagine." Gradually then, because he could not share his inner self with her, he lost the power of being a husband to her, and she was unfaithful to him.
Betty Smith
Such a mad marriage never was before.
William Shakespeare
The mere idea that you are not in a place for the rest of your life gives you an awfully unstable feeling. That's why trial marriages would never work. You've got to feel you're in a thing irrevocably and forever in order to buckle down and really put your whole mind into making it a success.
Jean Webster
When I think of New York City, I think of all the girls, the Jewish girls, the Italian girls, the Irish, Polack, Chinese, German, Negro, Spanish, Russian girls, all on parade in the city. I don't know whether it's something special with me or whether every man in the city walks around with the same feeling inside him, but I feel as though I'm at a picnic in this city. I like to sit near the women in the theaters, the famous beauties who've taken six hours to get ready and look it. And the young girls at the football games, with the red cheeks, and when the warm weather comes, the girls in their summer dresses . . .
Irwin Shaw
I'm older now, I'm a man getting near middle age, putting on a little fat and I still love to walk along Fifth Avenue at three o'clock on the east side of the street between Fiftieth and Fifty-seventh streets, they're all out then, making believe they're shopping, in their furs and their crazy hats, everything all concentrated from all over the world into eight blocks, the best furs, the best clothes, the handsomest women, out to spend money and feeling good about it, looking coldly at you, making believe they're not looking at you as you go past.
Irwin Shaw
Marriage is the ultimate solitude with minimal privacy.
Nelson Rodrigues
I'll follow this good man, and go with you;And, having sworn truth, ever will be true.
William Shakespeare
Now go with me and with this holy manInto the chantry by: there, before him,And underneath that consecrated roof,Plight me the full assurance of your faith.
William Shakespeare
By the moonlight he watched his wife for the last time. His hand sought the adjacent flesh and sorrow paralleled desire in the immense complexity of love.
Carson McCullers
Lady Windermere: Windermere and I married for love.Duchess of Berwick: Yes, we begin like that. It was only Berwick's brutal and incessant threats of suicide that made me accept him at all, and before the year was out, he was running after all kinds of petticoats, every colour, every shape, every material.
Oscar Wilde
He was terribly conscious that he only had one life and with seemed to sad to think that he had wasted it. He could never surmount his immeasurable regret. And that's why I tell you that Byring is right. Even though it only lasts five years, even though he ruins his career, even though this marriage ends in disaster, it will have been worth while. He will have been satisfied. He will have fulfilled himself.
W Somerset Maugham
He was terribly conscious that he only had one life and it seemed to sad to think that he had wasted it. He could never surmount his immeasurable regret. And that's why I tell you that Byring is right. Even though it only lasts five years, even though he ruins his career, even though this marriage ends in disaster, it will have been worth while. He will have been satisfied. He will have fulfilled himself.
W Somerset Maugham
I will deny thee nothing: Whereon, I do beseech thee, grant me this, To leave me but a little to myself.
William Shakespeare
I dont know what sort of world she will live in and I have no fixed opinions concerning how she should live in it. I only know that if she does not come to value what is true above what is useful it will make little difference whether she lives at all.
Cormac McCarthy
I had seen enough of Western courtship rituals to know European families did little to identify, research and arrange suitable marriages. Instead, to catch the attention of potential partners, Western males had to resort to shows of strength, aggression and virility, rather like wild boars in the mating season, and Western females had to decorate themselves and their homes, like bower birds.
Ovidia Yu
Of course married life is merely a habit, a bad habit. But then one regrets the loss even of one's worse habits.
Oscar Wilde
Marriage is like the Middle East, isn't it? There's no solution.
Willy Russell
Being laughed at is excellent preparation for marriage.
Timberlake Wertenbaker
Why is it that at a bachelor's establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information.I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand.Good Heavens! Is marriage so demoralizing as that?I believe it is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person.
Oscar Wilde
When Stephen talked about stalking chamois his whole expression changed. The features became more aquiline, the nose sharpened, the chin narrowed, and his eyes-steel blue - somehow took on the cold brilliance of a northern sky. I am being very frank about my husband. He attracted me at those times, and he repelled me too. This man, I told myself when I first met him, is a perfectionist. And he has no compassion. Gratified like all women who find themselves sought after and desired - a mutual love for Sibelius had been our common ground at our first encounter - after a few weeks in his company I shut my eyes to further judgment, because being with him gave me pleasure. It flattered my self-esteem. The perfectionist, admired by other women, now sought me. Marriage was in every sense a coup. It was only afterwards that I knew myself deceived. ("The Chamois")
Daphne du Maurier
Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it’s a mistake to make a habit of it.
W Somerset Maugham
It isn't a bit of use my pretending I'm not crying, because I am... Pause to mop up. Better now.Perhaps it would really be rather dull to be married and settled for life. Liar! It would be heaven.
Dodie Smith
Philosophers have a long tradition of marrying stupid women, from Socrates on. They think it clever.
Simon Gray
Oh! How many torments lie in the small circle of a wedding-ring!
Colley Cibber
A young man married is a man that's marred.
William Shakespeare
JACKThat is nonsense. If I marry a charming girl like Gwendolen, and she is the only girl I ever saw in my life that I would marry, I certainly won't want to know Bunbury.ALGERNONThen your wife will. You don't seem to realize, that in married life three is company and two is none.JACKThat, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years.ALGERNONYes; and that the happy English home has proved in half the time.
Oscar Wilde
In every marriage more than a week old there are grounds for divorce. The trick is to find and continue to find grounds for marriage.
Robert Anderson
... there is something revolting about the way girls' minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love. And most of those minds are shut to what marriage really means.
Dodie Smith
Did you ever see so many pee-wee hats, Carl?""They're beanies.""They call them pee-wees in Brooklyn.""But I'm not in Brooklyn.""But you're still a Brooklynite.""I wouldn't want that to get around, Annie.""You don't mean that, Carl.""Ah, we might as well call them beanies, Annie.""Why?""When in Rome do as the Romans do.""Do they call them beanies in Rome?" she asked artlessly."This is the silliest conversation...
Betty Smith
Am I really admitting that my sister is determined to marry a man she has only seen once and doesn't much like the look of? It is half real and half pretense - and I have an idea that it is a game most girls play when they meet an eligible young men. They just...wonder.
Dodie Smith
Adrian Mole's father was so angry that so many pepole got divorced nowadays. HE had been unhappilly married for 30 years, why should everybody else get away?
Sue Townsend
My second wife - I was still young then - she left me, and I made the mistake of winning her back. It took me years to lose her again after that. She was a good woman. It is not easy to lose a good woman. If one must marry it is better to marry a bad woman.
Graham Greene
Married people grow like each other.
Graham Greene
I'll have no husband, if you be not he.
William Shakespeare
I couldn't help wondering, is my husband so unattractive that no woman has ever wanted him? Except me, of course. I must have wanted him, in a way, once, but I've forgotten why, and I was too young to know what I was choosing.
Graham Greene
And too soon Marred are those so early Made.
William Shakespeare
Those who talk most about the blessings of marriage and the constancy of its vows are the very people who declare that if the chain were broken and the prisoners left free to choose, the whole social fabric would fly asunder. You cannot have the argument both ways. If the prisoner is happy, why lock him in? If he is not, why pretend that he is?
George Bernard Shaw
Wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty like a Scotch jig--and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and with his bad legs falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.
William Shakespeare
Martha: Oh, I like your anger. I think that's what I like about you most. Your anger.
Edward Albee
You silly Arthur! If you knew anything about...anything, which you don't, you would know that I adore you. Everyone in London knows it except you. It is a public scandal the way I adore you. I have been going about for the last six months telling the whole of society that I adore you. I wonder you consent to have anything to say to me. I have no character left at all. At least, I feel so happy that I am quite sure I have no character left at all.
Oscar Wilde
This is your heart. Keep it locked until the chap turns up who has the key.
Jean Webster
Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.
Oscar Wilde
Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
There is something revolting about the way girls' minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love.
Dodie Smith
But some characters in books are really real--Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of marriage.
Dodie Smith